


Hardware Update

by buhnebeest



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Disabled Character, Crack, Engineer Commander Shepard, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Non-Penetrative Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5934784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buhnebeest/pseuds/buhnebeest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joker has the unwelcome thought that he shouldn’t be this mortified about his girlfriend wanting to bone him. It probably has something to do with Commander goddamn Shepard drunkenly planning to Frankenstein said girlfriend’s vagina.  </p>
<p>“…‘recreational input’,” Joker repeats, strangled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardware Update

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



> A bucket of thanks to the lovely AceQueenKing for beta, and also for having the patience to listen to me cackle maniacally about the greatness of vaginas on a regular basis.

 It’s not often in a man’s life that one walks into the worst conversation ever heard. Especially not when you’re Joker, who generally avoids walking at all costs, and has participated in, if not instigated, his fair share of awful conversations.

Still, there is a special circumstance called ‘Shepard, drunk’, which in combination with EDI’s particular brand of keen curiosity about life, the universe and everything, tends to culminate in Joker’s endless tears and the dire need for a psych eval.

 “—be able to achieve orgasm?” EDI asks, blandly curious.

 Joker kind of lurches in place – nearly breaking his hip in the process – and backtracks to the starboard observation deck.

 Shepard is in there, alone, with a half-empty bottle of neon-green liquor in her hand, talking to the ceiling, which would be cause for some considerable concern if they didn’t actually have someone living in the ceiling. Or, more accurately… _being_ the ceiling.

 “Oh yeah,” Shepard slurs, gesturing expansively with her bottle – sloshing elcor brandy all over herself. “Bells and whistles and a cherry on top, the works. Code it, build it, stick it on, voila: instant orgasm. Hey, did Cerberus put a vagina on you? I think they fucked up mine, it’s all different, which just makes me imagine the fucking Illusive Man picking one from a goddamn catalogue—”

 “Oh my God!” Joker puts his hands over his ears. “Oh my God!”

 “The Illusive Man was not so intimately involved in your re-assembly, Shepard,” EDI says, and then: “Hello, Jeff.”

 “Hey, baby,” Joker says faintly. “What’s happening and how do I forget being part of it?”

 “Merely a point of interest,” EDI says.

 “A point of interest.”

“Yes. We were discussing hedonism and the relationship between sentience and carnality. Commander Shepard claims there are many factors that are of equal importance as physical stimulation in the pursuit of erotic fulfillment, but after I expressed interest in experiencing pleasure beyond the theoretical, Commander Shepard graciously offered to lend her services in modifying my nerve stimulus receptors to detect recreational input.”

“…‘ _recreational input’_ ,” Joker repeats, strangled.

Shepard sniggers and takes a sloppy swig from her bottle. “Don’t start sticking your junk into any power sockets just yet, Joker. I’m only doing the EDI-bot.” She pauses, grinning like a demented raccoon. “Well, _you’ll_ be doing the EDI-bot. I’m just hooking her up with a couple of cannibalized quarian nerv stims. Listen, Cerberus made Eva Corez the epitome of male-gaze wish fulfillment and then failed to give her any means to enjoy her own body. It’s fucking insult to injury. Giving EDI the ability to orgasm is a counterstrike against Cerberus, Joker. We’re boosting morale.”

Joker eyes her doubtfully. “…Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, we’re boosting EDI’s, at least.” Shepard raises her bottle to the ceiling. “Go Team Vagina!”

“Indeed, Commander,” EDI says serenely.

“I, uh…” Joker has the unwelcome thought that he shouldn’t be this mortified about his girlfriend wanting to bone him. It probably has something to do with Commander goddamn Shepard drunkenly planning to Frankenstein said girlfriend’s vagina.

Shepard shoots him with a finger gun. “Not just her vagina, buddy. I’ll throw in a couple of surprise erogenous zones. You crazy kids can have a blast looking for them.”

Shepard cackles and turns back to her bottle, which leaves Joker enough time to run a hand over his face and quietly freak the fuck out.

 

*****

 

Joker has had sex one and a quarter times in his life, the less said of which the better. A broken pelvis tends to put a damper on things pretty quick, never mind that Joker turned out to be allergic to the particular brand of condom Missy Flannigan from Sunday school magicked onto his dick. She also screamed like a Banshee and slapped him in the face when he started going into anaphylactic shock, which fractured his jaw to the point he required thirteen hours’ worth of dental surgery.

So, all in all, Joker has hang-ups.

His right hand has served him well this far in life, not to mention his assorted library of gentlemen’s special interest literature; once you resign yourself to a sexless existence its surprisingly easy to just kind of… roll with it.

When he got into this thing with EDI he kind of figured: yeah, she’s got no hormones, so no sex drive, so gotta keep on keeping on with the self-love. It’s no big deal, really.

“I didn’t know this was something you were… interested in,” Joker mutters, stumbling alongside Shepard to the elevator.

“Indeed.” The hallway lights dim slightly. “I was unsure of your reaction.”

Joker swallows. “I think it’s really cool, baby. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

The lights flare again; EDI simulating a smile. “Thank you, Jeff. I had hoped… that you would participate in my experiments.”

“I’m not sure what good I’ll be, baby,” he says awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “But sure. Yeah.”

Shepard snorts as she gets into the elevator. “Do I have to give you a sex talk, too?”

“Please don’t.”

 

*****

 

Joker watches Shepard nearly trip over nothing and break her face on a configuration console before bending over EDI’s eerily limp, deactivated body, increasingly convinced this is all gonna end in tragedy.

“Should you be handling a soldering iron right now?”

“Joker,” Shepard says gravely, pointing the thing right at his face. “Now is absolutely the best time for me to be handling a soldering iron. Now get the hell out. I need to focus.”

Joker grimaces and gets the hell out. He sits down in the hallway with a groan, patting the wall next to him. “I really hope this works for you, baby. But, uh… go easy on the merchandise, all right?”

The overhead light softens to a warm, gentle glow. “Yes, Jeff.”

Joker smiles and leans back heavily into the wall, a poor facsimile of a hug, but EDI probably gets it. EDI is pretty smart.

 

*****

 

Shepard emerges from her lair an hour later, goggles strapped crookedly to her face and a suspicious burn on her arm, still smoking faintly. She’s also grinning victoriously.

“She’s all yours, buddy,” she says, waving behind her. “Don’t get anything sticky on the upholstery.”

Joker waits until Shepard is safely gone before going into her workshop, heart thumping nervously. EDI’s platform is in there, sitting up on Shepard’s workbench, staring down at herself with wide, wondering eyes.

“Hey,” Joker says.

EDI looks up. “Jeff.”

Joker reaches out and strokes her arm. “You okay?”

Around them, all the lights start flickering wildly.

Joker jerks his hand back. The lights fizzle on again like normal, though perhaps a little brighter.

“…EDI? If we do this thing is the Normandy gonna stay in orbit?”

EDI is conspicuously silent for a moment, staring down at where his hand was.

“ _EDI_.”

EDI blinks up at him slowly. “Yes. Yes, I’m fairly certain.”

“Oh, that’s great, that’s very reassuring: ‘I’m _fairly_ certain we won’t plummet to our deaths while I’m getting my rocks off’—”

EDI kisses him mid-word, her cool-sleek hands carefully cradling his cheeks. Joker freezes for a second, then kisses her back, just as carefully curling his fingers around her hips, stepping between her parting thighs.

Things get a little blurry after that, but Joker is pretty sure he owes Shepard a new bottle of booze.

 

*****

 

Shepard wakes on the floor next to her bed, empty bottle in her hand and her hair sticky with the remainder of its content. She groans – why, oh why are the lights on – and pushes her face back in the carpet.

“EDI!” she rasps. “EDI, did it work?”

There’s no answer.

Shepard sits up, squinting. All the lights in her quarters are burning suspiciously brightly and the entire room feels warm, like the temperature control on the thermostat is on the fritz. In her bathroom, she can hear the shower running enthusiastically. Looks like Joker nabbed himself a gusher.

Shepard snorts and reaches up, patting the wall above her head. “That’s great, EDI. Go Team Vagina.”

She gets up on all fours, then climbs laboriously the rest of the way into bed, groaning feebly. After that, trying to get under the covers she’s lying on top of seems really too complicated for anyone to pull off, so instead she just lies there, throwing an arm over her eyes, grinning despite the way doing so hurts her face.

Ten minutes later she jolts upright.

“Wait, who the fuck is flying my ship?”  

**Author's Note:**

> * the phrase "gentlemen’s special interest literature" is blatantly stolen from Jimmy Carr.


End file.
